Kale

A proud day: after defending it from caterpillars, cabbage whiteflies and cabbage aphids, I have my first kale harvest from the backyard. This was lunch today.

The week of dill

For some reason, I bought a bunch of dill at the market last week. I'm not sure why. I like dill, but I don't have any in my herb garden, and the only herb I buy with any regularity is cilantro. So here we were, with dill, and I had to figure out what to do with it.

This week we had: baked potatoes with cashew sour cream and dill; a creamy potato, leek and lentil soup with dill; Cabbage with Rice and Currants (and dill) from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian (this was very good: kind of like the lazy person's dolma); and this New Year Noodle Soup from 101 Cookbooks. This sounds like dill overload, but it wasn't really.

My brother recommended this soup months and months ago, back in the summer when I couldn't even think about soup. It's really wonderful: the soup is spiced quite simply, with cumin, turmeric, black pepper and chile, and yellow split peas give it a nice richness. There's chickpeas and borlotti beans too, and spinach, cilantro and dill, and homemade pasta (I went for fettucini rather than thin noodles). And the toppings really make it special: (tofu) sour cream, caramelized onions, and walnuts.

I love walnuts in soup! They fall to the bottom and surprise you when you find one.

Birthday cake

Technically, it's a birthday blondie with mousse topping.

It's based on the Peanut Butter Mousse Cake from The Voluptuous Vegan, except I used Kittee's recipe (with added peanut butter, and no cashews/chocolate) for the blondie layer.

Since we had a quiet little birthday celebration with just us two, I shrank the recipe down to fit my 5 inch springform pan. (I divided both the blondie recipe and the mousse recipe by 4 -- the blondie recipe made enough for a couple of bonus blondies cooked in a muffin tin.)

This was really nice. The mousse is subtle and airy, and is a nice contrast with the sweet and chewy blondie.

Easter (Spring!) Feast

I have these photos backwards, but this past Sunday, I invited my neighbors and two friends from school (one brought her very sweet 14-year-old son) to Easter "dinner," served at 4pm. As you can see, the greens are in, though it's almost too warm now for lettuces. Carrots and beets are big players, radishes and turnips, too. Peas are in, and tomatoes have started. Cucumbers, too. Is it possible that summer is nearly here?

I need a little makeover for my red potato salad: right now I blanch string beans and cut scallions (maybe shallots are better)... and dress the lot with Australian pink salt flakes and a mustard vinaigrette. I sometimes add hard-boiled eggs. Suggestions?

Coming Out

I have, for the last several months, been eating the "lesser" intelligent animals. Every other week or every three weeks, I purchase organic ground turkey and make a meatloaf.
Here is a chicken from the market - pasture raised - that I bought yesterday. I'm including the "pasture raised" bit, but I'm sure it doesn't make a lick of difference. My lesser consumption is the half lemon, which I saved even though it was squeezed. I had to look online for the cooking temperatures and times. I couldn't (gasp!) call my mother.

Sourdough bagels

I used the sourdough bagel recipe from Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery. They worked out very well -- notable things about this recipe include the fact that the bagels are boiled really briefly (20 seconds) in nothing but water (other recipes I've tried include malt syrup and/or baking soda).

They didn't taste sour -- I guess this is because they spent most of their proofing time in the fridge. And they really got a lot of oven spring. Overall, I like this recipe, but I must say I have a bit of a weakness for the Montreal-ish bagels I make using the Artisan Bread recipe.

Popcorn cookies

These have been on my to-make list for a while. They got on the list because -- how could you not want to try cookies made out of popcorn? They stayed on the list, unmade, because I was sort of dubious that they could be anything but healthy-tasting.

And how were they? Surprisingly good. They go into the oven as very unpromising looking piles of grains held together with a little oil and sugar, and come out as beautifully crisp wafers. I must admit that I increased the sugar slightly, to 2 tablespoons (yes, this is a mini-recipe: it makes only 6 cookies). (Mine took much less time to cook than the recipe suggested -- I think only 7 minutes.)